I woke up to a happy anniversary message this morning. It’s been four wonderful years of blogging. Four years of sharing my thoughts using the WordPress platform. Four years of reading people’s comments on my posts and having the most tickling feeling only I can explain. You all have been my support over the years. I’d disturb your timelines with my posts on Facebook and everywhere and tagged a whole lot of you. Annoying something! But the love you had for me came through and you all hardly lay a complaint.

Thank You.

Older friends would remember the days of press council in Aquinas College. News we would broadcast to the school community every Friday. The seed had been sown and I took the budding cud to the Uni. Together with John and the team, as the Editor-In-Chief of my department’s press council, which we ran like the University press council, we broke records. We surpassed our expectation to say the least. Our Bi-monthly publications were usually a sold out, our information board was fully engaging and the whole press council project was a fantastic learning curve. We interviewed senior lecturers and hey, we also interviewed the Vice Chancellor. Massive moments those were. Victor, world class graphic designer, Gbemisola, Fortune, the sport correspondent, Dami, Tosin and a whole lot of you I possibly can’t mention. You guys were the best.

While many only see blogging through the needle’s eyes of Google Ad-sense and all, making money out of it has never been my drive. I see a platform where thoughts and ideas can be expressed. And I’ve been doing that for four years now.

I’ve been honored to have guest writers on this page. While they are currently on self induced vacation, be rest assured Beauty Corner with Precious and Shots on Target with Kholar will be back very soon. In the meantime, i should introduce the elegant Lisbeth Salander. She’s the latest addition to the family and going forward she’ll be delighting novel lovers with her thoughts. Something you need to look forward to.

John Magufuli is doing what has been termed the “Rwandanisation of Tanzania”. If you dont know about what Paul Kagame has done with Rwanda make Google your friend.

New Tanzania President did this in just 3 Month – AMAZING

Here are some of the things John Magufuli has done already in LESS THAN A MONTH. Not in 3 or 6 years, one month. He’s shown a clear commitment to walk the talk but not to talk and talk and talk and talk more like we do here:

New Tanzania President

1. Soon after his election, Magufuli declared there would be no celebration of Independence Day on 9 December because it would be “shameful” to spend huge sums of money on the celebrations when people were dying of cholera. Instead, the day has been set as a national day of cleanliness, and the money will go toward street¬cleaning services. He has said everybody should pick up their tools and clean their backyards.

2. After his first official visit to the Muhimbili Hospital, and seeing the horrible state it was in, he ordered over 200 million shillings marked for “parliament parties” be used to pay for beds for people lying on the floor and sharing beds.

A few days later 300 beds were delivered. He dismissed the governing board and got a new team in place, and within days the broken MRI was fixed. He also pared down his inauguration party from $100,000 to $7,000 and sent the extra money to the hospital.

3. Three days into his term, Magufuli announced a ban on all foreign travel by government officials. They have been instructed to instead make regular visits to rural areas to learn and help solve problems facing everyday Tanzanians. All tasks that required officials to travel abroad would instead be done by high commissioners and ambassadors who are already in place.

4. He has restricted all first and business class travel to government officials, except the president, vice¬president and prime minister.

5. There will be no more workshops and seminars in expensive hotels when there are so many ministry board rooms available.

6. He suspended the Tanzania Revenue Authority’s chief and other officials pending investigations after a visit by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa to the port of Dar es Salaam found 350 containers listed in its books were missing.

7. When he had to travel 600km to Dodoma, from Dar, to officially open parliament last week, he didn’t order a private jet – instead, he chose to drive.

8. At the National Assembly in Dodoma last week he clearly sent out the message that it will not be business as usual under his leadership.

9. He promised to cut public spending, fight corruption and enhance accountability in public service. He said it is time for Tanzanians to walk the talk.

10. Magufuli reportedly told parliamentary leaders that the people of Tanzania want him to solve their problems and not make speeches.

Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State,
on Tuesday, said the present war against
insurgency will not stop unless the
Federal Government was ready to tackle
it head-on, saying the Federal
Government institutions have stolen all
the money meant for human and
infrastructural development in the
country.
This is as the governor denied any rift
with President Goodluck Jonathan, saying:
“We are not quarrelling, we just have
disagreement on how to govern the
country. I have huge respect for him. He
is the Commander in Chief of the Armed
Forces and he should be the only person
to tell us how to bring Chibok girls back.”
Amaechi, who indicted the Presidency of
inciting Muslims and Christians against
one another in an attempt to win election
by all means come 2015, stated this when
he featured on a Kaduna-based Liberty
Radio weekly programme, ‘Guest of the
week’.
According to him, until the Federal
Government is ready to first, tackle the
underline factors, which include
corruption, education and poverty, ending
the insurgency would continued to be a
mirage.
According to him, ‘if the Federal
Government could support military
through intelligence gathering, which has
helped in combating militancy in Rivers
State and other states in the region, it
would be a good beginning to end the
menace.
He added that there was the need for the
government to work with everybody,
especially the locals in order to know who
and where the insurgents live, reiterating
that it was the failure of the government
in the first place.
Using the Niger-Delta militancy as a case
study, he said, “It took me just two
months to deal with militancy in Port
Harcourt and if a state could achieve that
within that space of time, how much
more the Federal Government that has
everything it needed at its disposal.
“The earlier the Federal Government
stops inciting Muslims against Christians
in order to win election, the better for
Nigeria.
“Killing militants was not the solution to
the militancy. So we began with
infrastructure and give them economic
livelihood because when they know that
when they go out, they earn some
money, they will not have time to
perpetrate evil of this magnitude.

The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, announced this at a news conference on the release of the results in Bwari, FCT, on Friday.

The registrar said after thorough processing of answer scripts of the candidates who sat for the examination, the board discovered some forms of malpractice perpetuated during the conduct of the examination.

“However, the results of 68,309 candidates from various centres are undergoing further screening to ascertain the culpability of 12,110 candidates’ results.“

A total of 1,629,102 candidates applied to sit for the Paper Pencil Test (PPT), while 15,008 candidates applied for the Dual Based Test, bringing the number of candidates to 1,644,110.

“The general performance of candidates in this year’s examination shows remarkable improvement compared with last year.

“About 40,692 candidates’ results were invalid due to either multiple shading ­ or no shading at all.

After processing all the results, the board also discovered that about 47,974 candidates were absent.“

The registrar assured the candidates that their results could be accessed on the JAMB Website using their registration numbers.

He said about 40 centres would be screened to ascertain their culpability and warned the public against Internet fraudsters.
“Information reaching JAMB shows Internet fraudsters are already telling candidates that their results could be upgraded in one form or the other.”

This is pure deceit, the public and candidates are hereby advised to disregard these fraudsters since they do not have access to our data.

“Let me once again state that candidates are allowed to change their choices of institutions and courses once only, this change has to be effected within two weeks from today.”

Ojerinde said the Computer Based Test (CBT) is scheduled to take place from May 18 to June 1 and appealed to candidates to reprint their e-registration slips afresh to further ascertain their CBT centres.

Still smirting from Bayern Munich smoothering of Barcelona at the Nou Camp, Nigeria’s former First Lady, Hajia Turai Yar’Adua on Thursday floored incumbent First Lady Patience Goodluck Jonathan as Justice Peter Affren of the Abuja High Court set aside the purported revocation by the FCT administration ofa land measuring about 1.84 hectares allocated to Turai’s non governmental organization, Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation, WAYEF.

The court held that the claims by the FCT Minister that the land was revoked on an overriding public interest was not supported by any shred of evidence before the court. It further held that the initial letter of offer issued Turai’s organization by the Minister remains valid and subsisting.

“The defendants failed woefully to adduce any shred of evidence before this court to support their claims that the allocation of the land was revoked on overriding public interest. There is no overriding public interest in this issue.
The allocation made to the plaintiff who is a vocational training centre was in public interest and in line with section 28 (1) of Land Use Act.”

The court faulted the FCT Minister’s exercise of his powers in revoking the plot of land allocated to Turai’s organization, noting that the exercise of that power to revoke allocation of land must come within the confines of the law.

Delivery of the court’s judgment was adjourned by the court several times to enable Mrs. Jonathan and Hajia Turai Yar’Adua reach a negotiated settlement but all to no avail. The disputed land, plot no.
1347 Cadastral Zone AOO, Central Business District, Abuja, FCT, was initially allocated to Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation, WAYEF, while Mrs. Yar’adua was First Lady, but the FCT Minister, Mr. Bala Mohammed, revoked the allocation for what he described as “overriding public interest” and re-allocated it to Mrs. Jonathan for the building of African First Lady Peace Mission Headquarters on 2nd of November, 2011.

Mrs. Yar’Adua complained that the land allocated to WAYEF on 19 February 2010 was being trespassed upon by Mrs. Jonathan and got a court order dated in 2012 restraining the First Lady from affecting WAYEF title and interest over the land.

Those joined as co-defendants in the suit are the FCT Minister, the Abuja Geographic Information System, AGIS and the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF.

Turai, on behalf of her organisation, WAYEF, is asking for N1.5 billion as general damages, N100 Million as exemplary damages, N100 Million as aggravated damages in addition to N261 Million already paid for Certificate of Occupancy as well as N454 Million paid for building designs.

WAYEF’s lawyer, Mr. Adamu Ahmed Ibrahim, observed that while it appears that the Ministry of Justice may be interested and committed to a settlement, their terms and what they offer says otherwise.

According to the lawyer, the land being offered by the FCTA was a much smaller parcel of land than the one purportedly acquired from WAYEF for Mrs. Jonathan.

As part of the moves to get a negotiated settlement, the Federal Capital Territory Administration had offered WAYEF Plot.
1838 Cadastral Zone AOO Abuja measuring 6119.29 square meters as replacement plot. While another plot 1839 was also proposed to be in favour of the African First Lady Mission, measuring 6100.51 square meters.

The said Plot nos 1838 and 1839 are subdivided from plot 700 CBD Cadastral ZoneAOO, Abuja.

The court however did not grant Turai’s demand for monetary damages.

Head of the legal unit of the FCT Administration, Mrs. Ima Akpongete, while reacting to the decision of the court indicated that the FCT will appeal the decision and argued that the minister exercised the power of his office accordingly in revoking the allocation and reallocating it to First Lady’s Peace Mission.

Contrary to News making ground that the Federal Government will start to implement the payment of a new #38,000 allowance package to serving corp members as from the end of this month, ASAT MEDIA can confirm to you that such plans don’t exist.

The Director General of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, Brigadier General, Nnamdi Okore Affia, has confirmed that the Federal Government has no plan, what so ever, to increase the Monthly allowance of the NYSC serving Members.

Mr Affia said this yesterday while addressing the 2013 Batch A corps members deployed to Katsina State.

He said “Let me be honest with you, there is no plan to increase your monthly allowance; all you have heard is nothing but rumours.”

He then added,
“If there is such plan, I must be the first person to know, but as far as I am concerned there is no official plan to increase your allowance; even if the plan is on the pipeline, it has not reached my level. Your monthly allowance is still N19, 800,” he said.

However, due to the Security challenges evident in the North, the Brigadier admonished the Corpers to respect the religion and culture of their host community and be good ambassador of their Schools, Homes, Families, and their different States.

He further told them;
“you should understand very well the dos and don’ts of your host community.”

One of the Corp member in the Katsina Camp, Saliu Moturayo, an Economics graduate from Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko told ASAT MEDIA that he’s actually enjoying himself in the State. Although, he admitted he had his reservations before getting to Katsina but his mind is changed now.
“Katsina is sweet to me. I’m so so Loving it here. Infact, i,m even considering bringing my Wife here”, he said.

The last have not been heard of Dana Airline. This morning, we report to you that for the second time, the Federal Ministry of Aviation has ordered the immediate suspension of the operational license of Dana Airlines. This is coming weeks after the airline had just been allowed to resume from months of ban over the June 3 air crash that killed more than 150 people. Just last week, the airline operator had complained that it’s losing 30% profit daily as a result of the crash.

But the Senior Special Assistant (Media) to the Minister of Aviation, Joe Obi, told journalist that the decision to suspend Dana airline’s operational license became necessary as a fallout of unresolved issues bordering on safety in it’s operations. He affirmed that the airline would remain suspended till all the issues are resolved.

“Yes, it is true the operational license of Dana Airlines has been suspended. What that means is that the airline’s operations have been suspended till further notice. The suspension will remain in place till all the issues are resolved. It might be tomorrow. It might be in two or three days’ time. But, for now nobody knows for how long it will take for the issues to be resolved,” Obi said.
Meanwhile, Dana airline’s management has release their own statement in response to the suspension. Apologising to its customers, the airline operator said:

“We regret to announce the temporary suspension of our flight operations following a directive from the Ministry of Aviation through the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) on Saturday, 16th March, 2013,” the statement said.

Personally, i think it’s time Dana Airline are left alone to operate. The Air Crash, as unfortunate as it was, is a result of the collosal downfall of our aviation industry and not just Dana’s fault.

A forty-year-old man, John Friday Akpan, from Akwa Ibom State but resident in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, is now explaining to the police how he allegedlyheeded the advice of a herbalist, one Dr Okokon, and tagged his two children, Elisha Udobong and Esther, as witches.

Akpan, who allegedly subjected the two children, aged 12 and 6 respectively, to harrowing treatment by nailing them to a plank and locking them up without foodfor days, was said to have told the police the children took his money to their “master in the witchcraft world and therefore deserved no mercy”.

The children, whose emaciated and dirty appearance replicated the images of starving children in famine ravaged Somalia and war torn Sudan following weeks of starvation, said they survived on water supplied by one of the man’s kids by another woman.
“Our sister, Peace, usually brought us water inside the hut when our father and our mother had gone out”, Esther said.

The father, the kids said, used to reside in Akpabuyo with the family where he sent them to a private school, Regent Nursery and Primary School, Ikot Nkanda, but when their mother died and the man took another wife, Iquo, the story changed.

Elisha, in JSS1, said: “My mother (stepmother ) said the woman who used to live near our house in Akpabuyo gave us food and she put something in the food and when we ate it we changed to birds at night and took out father’s money to our master in the witchcraft world”.

According to the boy, he was alleged to have taken 4 000 naira while Esther took 2000 and that angered their father and step mother who started beating them and denying them food “because they said we took the money to our master”.

The maltreatment became worse when they relocated to Calabar and took up residence at 23 Akpandem Street, off Edim Otop Street at the municipality.

“He (father) nailed us to one big plank and beat us that we should bring back the money but we had no money to give to him”, Esther said.

Unable to get back his money from the children, Akpan allegedly went for the final onslaught against the kids by locking them up in an abandoned hut where he lived so that they could die.

“When the situation became too bad, neighbours, worried that the children may die and the police descend on them, raised the alarm and reported to the police at the Airport Division who swooped on the parents and got them arrested”, Mr James Ibor, a child rights activist, told Sunday Vanguard.

He said the DPO of the Airport Division called him “at about 11 am on Friday, March 8 that there was another case of children stigmatisation as witches and I went to the station and behold, what I saw made me weep”.

Ibori said the children were so hungry and weak that it was apparent that they would have died if they had not been rescued.

“They were so weak that we had to give them water first, then some fruits; even at that the system of the girl could not accommodate the fruits and she had to visit the toilet afew minute after she ate thebanana I gave to them”.

DSP John Umoh, the spokesman of the Cross River State Police Command, said efforts were on to arrest Okokon the herbalist so that “he and the parents can appear in court to answer charges on felony”.

A housewife, who allegedly masterminded the gruesome murder of her husband in Port Harcourt, is now telling the Rivers State Police Command all she knows about the crime.

The woman, whose identity could not be ascertained as at press time, was said to have plotted the assassination of her husband (name withheld) on Wednesday night, at their house in Mgbeosimiri, in Agip area of Rumuolumeni.

The deceased, who was a prominent businessman and contractor with Nigerian Agip Oil Company, was killedat his country home, Mgbeoshimiri, Rumuolumeni, in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the State.
Saturday Sun gathered that the woman hid the alleged killers in their house before her husband returned from work, having told them that he was “a strong man” whose powers needed to be neutralised before they carried out the operation.

According to a source, when the deceased returned home from work at about 11:30pm, the wife asked him what he wanted to take for dinner and her husband requested for oat meal.

She was said to have drugged the meal, which weakened the man and paved the way for the assassins to murder him without resistance.

Shortly after the incident, one of the perpetrators was arrested and handed over to the police by members of a vigilance group, who noticed bloodstains on his clothes.
The woman, who later confessed to the crime,was said to have fainted at a police station, when she sighted one of the suspects in the murder. She was said to have confessed to conspiracy to kill her husband. According to her confession to the police, she decided to eliminate her husband when she discovered that he was making plans to marry a woman who was already pregnant for him.

When the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Benjamin Ugwuegbulam, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), was contacted, he told the reporter to give him some time to confirm from the Divisional Police Officer in charge of the area. Subsequent efforts made by our reporter to reach him on phone proved abortive.